Kiso-gun (Nagano)

Kiso-gun ( Japanese : 木 曽 郡 ), until May 1, 1968 Nishichikuma-gun (Japanese: 西 筑 摩 郡 ), is a district ( gun ) in Nagano Prefecture on the Japanese main island of Honshū . It has an area of ​​1,546.26 km², 31,485 inhabitants and thus a population density of 20.4 inhabitants per km² (as of March 1, 2010). It has three cities ( machi ) and three villages ( mura ). These are Agematsu , Kiso-machi , Nagiso and Kiso-mura , Ōkuwa and undtaki .

history

Kiso-gun was created under the name Nishichikuma-gun ("West Chikuma-gun") by division of Chikuma-gun. The other half resulting from this division is called Higashichikuma-gun ("East Chikuma-gun"). The seat of the then existing county administration was the village of Fukushima. After the establishment of the modern communal system on April 1, 1889, Nishichikuma-gun had 16 villages. On May 27, 1893, Fukushima became a city. On September 1, 1922, the village of Komagane was renamed the city and Agematsu. The first territorial reform after World War II took place on June 1, 1948, when the village of Nagawa was added to the Kitaazumi-gun . Unlike many other counties, Nishichikuma-gun was hardly affected by the major territorial reform of the 1950s. Only two amalgamations took place. On October 14, 1958, part of Kamika Village was added to Yamaguchi Village. The next day, the rest of Kamika was merged with Nakatsugawa in Gifu Prefecture . A major reduction in the number of municipalities only took place in the 1960s as part of two mergers. In 1968 Nishichikuma-gun had three cities and eight villages. On May 1, 1968, the name was changed from Nishichikuma-gun to Kiso-gun. In 2005 there were three municipal amalgamations, which reduced the number of municipalities belonging to Kiso-gun to the current number.